Succession Planning Lessons from Steve Yzerman

With the battle for the Stanley Cup finally underway – and avid hockey fans glued to their TVs – one of the biggest sports stories last week wasn’t in the rink, it was the announcement that Steve Yzerman is leaving the Detroit Red Wings. After 27 years with the organization as a player and executive, he accepted an offer from the Tampa Bay Lighting to be their GM. For the Red Wings, the departure wasn’t a major surprise as he’d nearly accepted a position with Minnesota several months prior.

By all accounts, Yzerman’s aspirations to be a GM have always been clear, but you have to wonder how long the Red Wings ownership really saw his departure as a real possibility. Three months, six months, three years? As a talent management issue it’s an interesting one. Clearly, every organization needs a succession plan that ensures there’s a pool of individuals who are prepared and trained to step into a position should a vacancy arise. Even if you have a succession plan in place, this story raises some important questions to consider.

First, how far in advance should you be preparing for the possible departure of an employee with your succession plan? As an HR pro, you may conduct exercises to assess high potentials or areas of risk and retention to identify employees that may be leaving the organization, but a good succession plan should be built along the assumption that anyone, even your most loyal, low risk stars, may leave at any time. That’s where your talent pool comes in, creating a pool of employees who are developed and ready to step into positions when the need arises.

Another strong argument for the talent pool model over the straight org chart replacement model is that when key people leave, they may “take” some of their closest allies with them. One of the big questions right now around Yzerman’s departure is who from the front office is going to follow him to Tampa Bay. If you have only one director developed to the point where they could step into a VP role, you are going to be stuck when they leave. On the other hand, if you cross train people across areas, and have multiple individuals in a talent pool, you’ll be in a better position to promote from within.

Yzerman’s departure also raised another question in my mind. Can you ever truly replace a star of this caliber? Perhaps not, but with solid succession planning processes in place, you have more opportunities to identify rising stars and develop them into high performers. That said, there’s only one Steve Yzerman, and his loss will be sorely felt by the Red Wings organization and fans for seasons to come.